NAKHON PHANOM: A senior police officer, his wife and daughter were killed when their pickup truck plunged off a slippery road and into a creek in Muang district on Saturday morning.
The crash occurred on Nongyat Road in Laophumee village at around 9am, said Pol Capt Jurarat Artpirom, deputy investigation chief at the Muang district station.
Police and rescue workers rushed to the scene and found a pickup truck with a Sakon Nakhon licence plate in Lam Huay Bangkor creek. When they retrieved the vehicle from the water, which was about three metres deep, they found three bodies trapped inside.
They were later identified as driver Pol Sub-Lt Thongmee Khaiphet, 54, deputy crime suppression chief at Kutakai police station in Pla Pak district of Nakhon Phanom; his wife Pitsamai Nakboon, 48, and their daughter Orathai, 17.
A police investigation found that the officer and his family were on the way downtown when another vehicle overtook his pickup truck, causing him to lose control as the road was slippery from rain. The vehicle struck a roadside tree before plunging off the road and into the creek, where the three family members drowned.